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TES: The largest network of teachers in the world
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Table of Contents
Baby+Boy+or+Girl.jpg
Broad Question
Does gender affect the ability to read jumbled words?Specific Question
Does one gender make less mistakes whenreading jumbled words than the other?
Variables
Independent Variable:
GenderDependent Variable:
Mistakes Made (count)Variables That Need To Be Controlled:
Same Number of GenderSame Test
Quiet Environment
Hypothesis
I hypothesize that females will make fewer mistakes when reading jumbled words.Graph of Hypothesis
General Plan
Experimental Design
For the science fair, I plan to conduct my experiment that will help me determine if one gender makes less mistakes when reading jumbled words than the other in my homeroom, the school library, and at my house. A total of twenty people will be involved in my experiment, ten males and ten females, but more if possible. Their roles will be test-takers, since I’ll be recording how many mistakes they’ll make while reading jumbled words. I plan on completing ten trials (possibly more if I end up having more subjects) in order to have enough information to make a reliable conclusion. I’ll record my data on a spreadsheet that’s printed out and then transfer the data to a computer. I’m going to document my experiment by counting the number of mistakes made while the subject is reading the paragraph of jumbled words. When they’re finished, I’ll record the total number of mistakes they made in my data table. Once I have gathered all of my information, I’m going to find the average number of mistakes made by each gender.
Number Of Trials:
20(+)Number Of Subjects In Each trial:
1When data will be collected:
Early FebruaryNumber of Observations:
20(+)Where will data be collected?:
School and homeMaterials List
1. 20 people (10 males and 10 females)
2. Jumbled Word Test
3. Pencil(to record data)
4. Data Table
Detailed Procedure
1. Create jumbled word test.
2. Gather a group of participants (10 males and 10 females.)
3. Give all the subjects under the age of 18 a permission slip signed by themselves and a parent/guardian and all the subjects over 18 a permission slip for just themselves to sign.
4. Get a group of the participants in a quiet and controlled environment where they can concentrate on the reading.
5. While testing the subjects one at a time, record how many times they make mistakes in the data table.
6. Document the data.
Background Research
- Comes from a letter written in 1999 by Graham Rawlinson.“Clearly, the first and last letters are not the only thing you use when reading text,” said Rawlinson."Reminds me of my Ph.D. at Nottingham University, which showed that randomizing letters in the middle of words had little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text."
- Most people think that we only use the first and last letters when reading a word, which is false.
Consensus among psychologists who study reading is that we don’t recognize words by their shapes, but by looking at the letters within a word in parallel.References
"Cambridge Word Scramble Study: It's Fake Already!." Science Avenger. N.p., 16 Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Jan. 2012.Crowder, Courtney. "If You Can Raed Tihs, You Msut Be Raelly Smrat." FOX News. N.p., 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511177,00.html>.
L., K.. "Mystery of Scrambled Words." Srcibd. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/7366101/Mystery-of-the-Scrambled-Words>.
Silverstein, Alvin, Silverstein Virginia, and Silverstein, Robert. The Nervous System. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books, 1994. Print.
Sahni, Sun. "Jumbled Letters Still Readable." Infolific. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Jan. 2012. <http://infolific.com/fun/jumbled-letters-still-readable/>.Photo List
Results
Data Table
Graphs
Photos
Data Analysis
Conclusion
The original purpose of this experiment was to find how/if gender affects the ability to read jumbled words. I had a total of twenty people participate in my experiment-ten males and ten females. The results of the experiment were that gender doesn’t affect the ability to read jumbled words. Eight was the highest number of mistakes made by females and eighteen was the highest for males. However, the average between the two genders wasn’t as great. The median amount of mistakes females made was 6.4 and 8.8 for males, There isn’t a clear relationship between gender and someone’s ability to read jumbled words.
Discussion
My hypothesis was that females would make fewer mistakes when reading jumbled words than males. My results do and do not support my hypothesis.I predicted that females wouldn’t make as many mistakes as males, which was correct. I also thought that there’d be a greater difference between the average for each gender, which was incorrect. There weren’t really any consistent patterns or trends throughout the data, but 25% of the people who participated in the experiment made eight mistakes. I think the test went smoothly. All twenty people were able to take part in it without any problems and I was able to gather the data I needed. If I could improve my experiment, I would have more people participate, so I could see what the results would be with a wider range of people. An interesting future study might involve people of different ages and seeing if that affects their ability to read jumbled words.